


Dumpster Love

by ugagradlady



Category: Hazbin Hotel
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, This Fic Contains Sea Bunnies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-07-06 12:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ugagradlady/pseuds/ugagradlady
Summary: When a baby demon is found in the dumpster at Happy Hotel, Charlie takes it upon herself to raise it in hopes that it will become good and go to heaven. Most of the other Misfits don't have this goal in mind, and before long, they come to see the baby as an ideological symbol instead of a sticky, messy reality.





	1. Prologue

_“Who didn’t take the trash out?”_

The hotel loomed above the garbage-strewn streets of Hell. It was a sinister-looking place, with two towers placed in front of a dingy skyscraper like the eyes of a creeping snail. Its many windows shone with padparadscha-colored light, and flickers of furtive animal movement could be seen from within. A flashing pink sign up on the roof, reading “Happy Hotel,” stood poignantly out of place against the warped black façade. 

The whole setup still had a kind of dignity to it, which the bungalows huddled taround the place lacked. Like the Hearst Mansion above, the architect had somehow twisted its tackiness into a fantastic aesthetic. The one contrast to this was the dumpster in the side alley, which looked and smelled completely ordinary.

_“Crymini? It’s your turn!”_

A brochure had been nailed to the wall, its cover announcing:

_**DEBRISOMANCY! The SCIENCE of Finding PORTENTS in Refuse-CALL TODAY!** _

The cultists had ripped open a trash bag to divine their (doubtless bleak) futures, dribbling vile goop all over the other bags in the dumpster. They’d spray-painted symbols on the walls in their code, but not before a fight had ensued, with blood, feathers, and scales having been splattered all over the alley.

_“Where is she…anyone else want to volunteer?“_

Trash cans clanged from the lobby of the hotel. Derisive laughter answered back. 

_“Ugh…never mind, I’ll do it myself!”_

With a groan from the doors of Happy Hotel, Charlie, the princess of Hell, emerged. She was a young, slim demon, friendly-looking despite the Satanic fire flickering deep in her eyes. Shaking her blond hair off her white face, she pushed out an overstuffed bin of trash bags. “Just this once,” she said under her breath. She wished she believed it.

The alley with the dumpster in it, Charlie saw, had been host to yet another cult vandalism. Bracing herself for the stench, she opened the lid. While it was foul, this did not surprise her; the goop all over the inside, though, angered her. Who was going to wash this thing out?

She turned and picked up a trash bag from the bin, but before she could drop it in, she heard muffled noises coming from the fetid pit…almost like _crying._

Putting the bag aside, Charlie called, “Hello? Is someone in here?” The inside of the dumpster shifted, the crying getting louder. A small, lumpy form could be seen moving inside an oozing bag.

She would have to get it out herself.

Charlie reluctantly reached inside the garbage and began to pull a demon out. It was slippery, white with two long black extremities, and about the size of a man’s shoe. Twice it slipped from her grasp, but she continued to tug on it. As it squirmed in her reeking hands, its cries grew ear-piercingly intense, drowning out the shouts of the pimps from the next block.

The baby was slimy and floppy, its half-gnawed cord dangling down. With a Dalmatian-spotted body, rabbit-like ears, and no legs, it looked like some oceanic elder god's misconception of a rabbit. A fluffy white tail jiggled on its rear to complete the effect. 

As Charlie held it close, she could see that it was in distress and greatly weakened. It was also a boy. A thought dawned on the ooze-covered princess: this baby must have come from demons who loved each other! Sure, they hadn’t loved him, but he’d at least been brought to term instead of meeting his end on a rusty coat hanger. Could his parents be made to feel remorse? To _raise him at the hotel?_

The trash would have to wait. “Shush, shush,” she whispered to the child, rocking him gently. “I’m here. It’s okay. Come on, I’m taking you to a nice place.”

A little white gull-like demon fluttered down to Charlie’s feet. “Uh, hey,” he said, pointing at the baby’s umbilicus. “You gonna finish that?”


	2. A Little Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie struggles to find a safe place for the baby she has found in the dumpster. The denizens of the hotel that she meets along the way make it clear to her that no one is safe anywhere...but is there someone who can at least try to help?

PART !: A LITTLE STRANGER

_Loving you_  
_Isn’t the right thing to do_  
_How can I change_  
_The way I feel_  
_If I could_  
_I would give you my world_  
_How can I_  
_When you won’t take it from me_  
_You can go your own way_  
_Go your own way_  
_You can call it_  
_Another lonely day_  
-Fleetwood Mac, “Go Your Own Way”

After the vulgar fluorescence of Hell, the darkness almost seemed to swallow them. Even the baby’s cries were met with some kind of spiteful resistance as the acoustics of the front hall reduced them to a distant echo.  
Happy Hotel, made to teach demons to learn how to be good and go to heaven, had so far failed to live up to its name. Cheerful decorations were placed all over the walls: gold star stickers, posters saying “HAPPY!”, and “DON’T GIVE UP!!” and those weirdly smiling paper cutout characters that seem to be all over every school, above or below. Someone had just disfigured the decorations with claw scratches. This hotel was eventually going to be lauded as a place of redemption and forgiveness, but Charlie knew the guests had a long way to go.  


A dusty mini-bar, covered in sticky notes and cynically arranged word magnets, hummed from next to the front desk. She opened it, fished through all the beer bottles, and took out a dubiously fresh milk carton. With no baby bottles to help her feed the newborn, she could only pour a little bit of cold milk into his mouth at a time; he still dribbled most of it out.  


The princess looked at him in mingled pity and panic as he fussed in her arms. So tiny he was, and this little boy’s life was already in danger. Could anyone else be trusted with him? He must be returned to his parents as soon as Charlie could find them; killing him through her own incompetence would not make demon families want to stay together at Happy Hotel. The staff here could help her out in the meantime.  


But, as she rocked him back and forth, she realized that she did not know a single member of the hotel staff who’d proven a responsible caretaker for children, neither for their own nor for other people’s. Her butlers Razzle and Dazzle had cared for her in childhood, true, and would be willing to help out. For everyone else, it might be a learning experience. If they wanted to go to heaven, they wouldn’t kill him, would they? 

Charlie picked up a Post-It note from the desk drawer and wrote:  


**BABY BOY FOUND IN TRASH-LOOKING FOR PARENTS URGENTLY!!!**  


Placing it on the bulletin board, she continued down the hall with the baby. There were an ill-lit staircase and an elevator, the latter of which she chose to use. While waiting for its aged black wooden doors to open, she looked down at the baby and smiled. He seemed to smile back! What could the name of this little demon be? It wasn’t just a matter of picking cute baby names; knowing a demon’s true name gives mastery over it. In essence, Charlie would create a way to control him as soon as she decided on what he was to be called. This was not something she trusted the input of Happy Hotel’s other staff with, lest she one day have to deal with the fallout of sending young “Cornholio” or “Dogfluffer” to preschool. It needs to be something simple… 

_Ding!_ The elevator doors parted, letting the girl into the padded car. Off to the sixth floor she rode, swaying in an exhausted little dance to the sound of “Vladimir’s Blues” from the speaker. The baby loudly interrupted the melody, sharting black goop onto the tiles. Even this wasn’t keeping Charlie awake...  
*thump thump thump* 

Someone knocked on the wall from outside, startling her back into coherence.  


“Hello? Who’s there?” she called, knocking back. Whoever _was_ there thumped one final time before the elevator reopened. An expanse of red carpeting, old paintings of Charlie’s relatives, and closed wooden doors yawned before her; she stepped out and turned down the left hall. Happy Hotel creaked as it settled beneath her feet. Overhead fans whirred relentlessly, and bodiless whisperers began to gossip about the child in her hands. All of it was shot through with turned-down moans and cries from the guests’ porno movies.  


Room 666, however, was silent-thank evil that the door didn't creak when she opened it with her key. As the hotel’s newest guest flinched in his sleep, the princess of Hell carried him into the dark expanse within. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't complete yet. To be continued...


	3. Night Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie tries to find a safe place to put the baby before bedtime.

(NOTE: I am revising this chapter and will move on to Chapter 4 when I'm satisfied.)

Charlie took a black key out of her pocket and turned it in the hole of the door. Thankfully, it didn’t make a noise when she opened it. This was one of the most “normal”-looking rooms in the hotel, with towels that weren’t on fire, pillows stuffed with down instead of murex shells, and personal mementos caught in a valiant struggle not to overwhelm their storage space.  
Her old canopy bed beckoned from the corner, and though Charlie was very much tired, she could not sleep in good conscience without knowing the baby was safe. He was half-asleep himself, no longer conscious of the dripping dumpster ooze all over his body. She quickly ferried him to the crimson-walled bathroom and placed him in the sink.  
A little warm water and hand soap cleaned the filth off her hands, but when applied to the baby slug boy, they did the opposite thing. The more water got on him, the more slime poured out of his sides. Finally, that sink looked like the marital bed of two hagfish, and smelled even more so.  
Charlie didn’t know whether to cry or pass out. Co-sleeping would be out of the question with an infant that could make her bathroom into the set of a ‘90s Nickelodeon game show. He threatened to droop in her hands, and while moving her arm to support him, she remembered something; there were things for babies here. They just hadn’t been used in quite a while.  
Carrying him back outside, she returned to the elevator. It opened before she could press a button, and with that, out came the first guest to learn of the child’s existence.  
That spiders should not walk on two legs is obvious. That they should not be able to wear mascara is a given. And that they should not be eight-foot-tall spiders in pink high heels goes without saying _AHHHHHHHH!!_  
Angel Dust pulled a used syringe out of his arm and glared at Charlie’s burden. “Whose baby is this?” he asked. “And why’d you bring it here?”  
“I don’t know; I found him in the dumpster,” said the princess. “Say hello to our newest guest, Angel!”  
“He’s a guest? Who’s gonna take care of him?” The spider demon flung a pair of frilly panties off his shoulder. “I don’t know nobody in this hotel you can trust with that.”  
“I’m taking care of him. And didn’t you have a daughter?”  
“I outlived her.” Angel skulked off through the windy hallway. “Just be careful with the kid, is what I’m sayin’.”  
Charlie reentered the elevator, which now smelled even funkier, and descended to the 4th floor. Thankfully, her goal was right next to the entrance. She knocked on the door of Room 462, and heard a groan as its occupant woke up.  
“What is it now? It’s late!”  
“I’m sorry, Vaggie…but this is an emergency. I need help with this baby I found.”  
_“A baby?!?_ Why do you think I can help with it at 1 AM? I’ve never had a child!”  
Charlie winced at the tone of her friend’s voice. “Uh…he doesn’t do much now. He can’t be that hard to-”  
“He won’t make it here. Let me go back to bed.”  
“Please!” the princess begged, desperately thumping her hand on the door. ”You’re the only person here that I would trust with his life!”  
Vaggie Motha opened her door. A prostitute in life, her demonic form had mauve skin, a single eye, and long platinum hair. She looked at the slimy baby with disdain. “What could I help you do with him? I told you, Charlie, I’ve never been a mother. And neither have you. He’ll die here-”  
“I just want to find a safe place to put him, where nobody will try to eat him or shake him or anything.”  
“Tall order,” said Vaggie. “Didn’t you say you had some old baby stuff in storage?”  
Charlie thought back to her childhood. She had had a cradle, a rattle, and an angel’s skull to play with in her room. Chained demons, whom she’d once thought to be happy and willing caretakers, had been forced to sing her children’s songs and tell fairy stories about talking animals.  
“Yes, I do. I have, uh, my old cradle.”  
“But no diapers or bottles for him, right?”  
“Umm, I don’t-“ Vaggie cut her off. “You have to go to the store in the morning, Charlie! Just find somewhere for this little urphan-I mean orchin-to sleep now!”  
She sighed. “Thank you, Vaggie. I’m sorry for waking you up.“  
“But there is one more thing I want to do before you go back to sleep.”  
Vaggie shook some hair out of her eye. “So what is that?”  
Charlie took her cell phone out of her pocket as the child whimpered in his sleep.  
“We’re new moms now! I want to take a picture of us with the orchin!”  
“I’m not looking my best,” sighed Vaggie. “Don’t share this with anyone else.”  
After the selfie was taken, the whispers from the shadows of Happy Hotel began to discuss the new demon.  
_“…bring him…”_  
“…join us soon…”  
“…no hope for him…”  
“…babe in the woods…”  
“Shut up, all of you,” warned Vaggie. “Or I’ll spray this hall with lemon-scented deodorant again.”  
The voices quieted down. She closed her door with a final little hand-wave to the newest guest.  
“Orchin,” Charlie laughed. That would be a good name for him, like a computer password that had a pet’s name in l33t. A private joke between her and her Happy Hotel “family.”  
She traveled back to her room while Orchin whimpered and complained. Swaddling him in a towel, she placed him next to her in bed. Odoriferous body fluids be damned, if she didn’t sleep this night she’d be totally out of it at 5:30 AM.  
Charlie squeezed the baby’s little hand and closed her eyes as he grasped her finger.  
Suddenly, someone knocked on the walls again. Charlie was rapidly slipping away and remained in bed; for a few hours things would be okay. Whoever was making noise could be dealt with in the morning.  
Then a gunshot rang out.  
Then more gunshots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao I hate this, it's so poorly written...when the pilot releases next year I'll give the entire fic a revision, but now I just want to set things up.


	4. Make Fists With Your Toes

As sirens blared, the intercom system came to life with a rich, musical voice. _“Attention, Happy Hotel! Armed thugs are shooting up the place! The building is on lockdown, so don’t try to be heroes!”_  
Charlie sat bolt upright as the baby once more began to wail. They would not take him from her. If she’d been well rested, she would have felt fear, but now there was only a grim maternal urge to smash the gunners’ faces in.  
With him in her arm, she opened the door a crack and looked outside. A small demon ran squealing through the hall: “Alastor? Alastor? Do I get to stab people?”  
“Go back to your room, Niffty!“ Charlie shouted.   
What was the protocol for armed gunners in the hotel? She pulled a large folder from under her bed and angrily leafed though it, not even noticing when the boy urinated in her grasp.  
Lie on hands and knees in corner, then…  
_“Want some benefits to your stay at Happy Hotel? First one to catch one of the goons gets free rent for a month and a dryer that’s guaranteed not to have been pissed in!”_  
Charlie heard stomping and whooping from the air vent in her room. The orchin was crying lower from sheer exhaustion. She took a few seconds to parse this, then bolted out the door as another gunshot fired.  
_“That’s it folks, some poor rube just bit it! Proceed to Angel Dust’s medicine cabinet and have the happiest final hour of your lives!”_  
“No, they can’t have my stash!” Angel shouted from somewhere nearby.  
_“Admit it, there’s enough for everyone!”_  
“Alastor?” Charlie called. “Where are you?”  
The Radio Demon could be sending these intercom messages from anywhere, including other dimensions. A stampede of shouting hotel guests nearly flattened Charlie and the orchin as she tried to get to the elevator.   
The stairs would take too long, For a brief moment she entertained the fantasy of jumping down the balconies like an action hero…then a longer moment. What else was there to do to bring this to an end?  
Angel’s stash would hold out. The princess of Hell took the orchin back to her room, opened the window, and stood looking at the skyline of Pentagram City. Sir Pentious’ yellow airship rained bombs on the ghetto to the left; a dragon flew by and shouted at her to strip naked; angels shook a news helicopter as it hung in midair.   
This city was worth defending,  
The slug, weakly crying, had attached himself to her torso with his foot. “Hold on,” she whispered, crawling out the window. “We’re going on one more adventure tonight.”  
It was necessary to look down. A-story fall awaited unlucky parkour players, with a heap of trash, beer cans, and drug paraphernalia others had illegally dumped at the bottom in lieu of a funeral plot. The nearest place to jump was another window to the left, with a balcony two more windows ahead.  
Charlie smiled grimly, telling the baby, “Some guests are getting their gold stars taken off for that alcohol down there. If we-no, when we make it. We’re not gonna fall!” He shuddered and yawned. “I know, I know, I’m tired too.”  
After about 15 seconds of mastering her fear, she leapt to the window and grabbed the frame, standing, shaking. “Woo!! We made it!”  
“Take your damn top off-“  
“Get away from me!” the princess snarled, her eyes turning red and horns growing from her scalp. Fire flickered around her feet. The dragon flew away, laughing.  
One window was left before she would reach the stairs. What was there-but to jump it? A brief, panicked scrabble as cigarette butts crumbled away and the journey was two-thirds over.  
“Charlie, are you up there?”  
Vaggie looked up from a lower window, her hair bow flapping. “What the fuck are you doing out on the balcony? You need to come in!’  
“I, um, I wanted to-“  
“You aren’t thinking clearly- _ay Dios, el bebecito es contigo!”_  
Charlie got off the banister and winced in embarrassment. “I wanted to show Orchin to everybody!”  
“No,” said Vaggie. “You aren’t even following pro-“  
She gave up mid-sentence, running a hand through her mauve hair, then ran back inside. Her voice could still be heard: “Don’t get yourself hurt!”  
“Vaggie, I’m coming!” Charlie called, jumping to the balcony without hesitation. She held the sleepy orchin under one arm and climbed through the half-open window.   
Another round of gunfire started. It hadn’t deterred anyone from trying to find the shooters; even at the exit, several guests were bustling around trying to get a good look at them. Charlie navigated through a forest of arms, claws and tentacles to see that one heating vent had had its grate screwed loose.   
Right below it was the tall red figure of Alastor, the Radio Demon. The demonic deer was the hotel’s backer, and assumed this gave him the right to do as he pleased with guests. With uncounted past genocides at his hands, few people would be brave (or clueless) enough to argue with him on this account.  
“” he said, as if he were an old radio host.  
““Is it okay for me to kill people now?” Niffty asked.  
“No,” said Charlie. “We’re not killing anyone.”  
“Not yet!” retaliated Vaggie.“Radio Demon, if innocent people are hurt in this, I will make redneck art out of your ass.”  
“Oh, don’t worry, she’ll find the ones who aren’t innocent!” he said glibly. Before the women could react, Alastor ripped the grate open with his claws and shoved Niffty inside: “Sic ‘em, child!”  
Vaggie tried to pull her out, but she was already too far away. “I don’t want that clueless, deranged little ditz to be killed in there!” she growled.  
“I feel the same way,” said Alastor. “Ever had a decaying corpse in your ventilation system? The smell’s enough to make a monkey house cry!”  
With the hotel ventilation system’s track record of Legionnaire’s disease, it would not improve their reputation to have a decaying corpse in there. “Niffty?” Charlie called. “I kind of don’t want you to be shot! Get out of the vents!”  
_“Oh! Helloooo boys!!”_  
The gun fire picked up. Someone could be heard singing “Ode to Joy.”  
“Alastor, this isn’t helping!” the princess warned. “It won’t improve the situation!”  
“Who said I wanted to _improve it?_ ” he answered, his perpetual smile taking on a predatory cast. The voices in the vent were beginning to sound fearful.  
_“Oh, shit! No! NO!!”  
“Where is she??”  
“Argyle, are you still there?!?”_   
After several loud cracking sounds, the voices and guns stopped. Niffty stayed in the vent, but downstairs, there could be heard an ecstatic roar. It stadium-shifted into cries of “There they are! Kill them!” and other such threats. Couldn’t this place survive one night without casualties?  
Charlie rushed downstairs with the orchin in her arms, following several guests who wanted a piece of the action. They joined a bustling crowd in the rec room. Hugging him closely, she maneuvered through the demons, finally finding the hotel’s invaders under an air vent.  
They were Egg Bois, sentient eggs created to serve the reptilian ruler wannabe Sir Pentious. Each wore a little top hat, a striped suit, and a pair of black shoes. Though they could be dangerous, they were often more like the Lemmings from the ‘90s videogame: tiny, busy doing ridiculous things, and with tendencies to blindly follow each other to their doom. At least Sir Pentious had the decency to make his bumbling attack force wear pants.  
“Hold him,” Charlie told a seven-eyed sheep. He bleated when the sticky child was handed to him, but his instinct to obey the leader kept him from doing anything else. She walked up to the Egg Bois, asking, “Why are you shooting up the place?”  
“We’re playing ‘Die Hard!’” one told her with a cracked smile. “It’s the best game in Hell! Better than a shower and a hot cup of coffee!”   
“I can think of better games,” said the demon sheep, lowering his four horns. “Like fucking “Beat These Stupid Egg Fuckers Until All The King’s Fucking Horses and All the King’s Fucking Men Fucking Throw up Their Fucking Hands and Fucking Say, ‘“We give up! No one could possibly tell what this fucking used to be!”  
Okay, bad idea. Don’t make him hold a newborn child right now. Charlie took the orchin back from him.  
“That doesn’t sound fun,” frowned the Egg Boi. “Shooting people while you say cool catchphrases is way better, yo!”  
“Don’t forget breaking windows!”  
“So much glass!”  
Niffty fell out of the vent, covered in loose egg bits but still proud. ”Got all of ‘em!” she shrieked, dancing in glee. “Oh wait-there’s three more!”  
Another Egg Boi jumped down from above, falling on Niffty’s head, and waved a shank menacingly at his companions “Zo, John McClane,” he growled, “I haff you now!”  
“So you wanna play ‘Die Hard,’ huh?” said Angel Dust. All six of his arms magically generated pistols as he advanced, in an almost stately way, toward the Egg Bois. Niffty was nudged out of the way with his heel. “Ducky-I already _won_ that game.”  
The egg people huddled together in fear. This never happened to Bruce Willis…  
**“WAIT! WHAT ABOUT THE SEQUELS?!?”**  
Over the sound of gunfire, screaming, and cracking shells, Charlie announced, “Hey! Everyone! Look at our new guest!”  
Every demon in the hotel (except poor deaf Enrique) was now awake. As soon as they saw him, they began to protest his existence.  
“Is that a giant slug? Gross.”  
“Make it shut up…with salt!”  
“You should have left it where you found it.”  
“It’s not mine, is it? I don’t even remember what he looked like.”  
“He’s a newborn baby, and I found him in the dumpster,” said Charlie as Razzle and Dazzle rushed to her side. “He has nowhere else to live, so I’m keeping him here.”  
“He’s not safe here. Those guys were just trying to steal him,” said Vaggie, brushing hair out of her face.  
“So, why didn’t you just let them steal it?” asked a bipedal cat with red bird’s wings. “Then it could have a home and I wouldn’t have to hear it scream anymore. Simple stuff.”  
“No,“ answered Alastor. “Their master would’ve just raised it to sew insoles into overpriced sneakers for 10 cents an hour. And that’s not what this establishment is all about, Husk!”  
“Happy Hotel will take in anyone who needs help,” the princess added. “Even a little orch-a little orphan boy. He would have just…died in the dumpster if I didn’t hear him crying. And he’ll probably go to heaven really soon!”  
“Sooner than you, Husk,” smirked Angel, wiping yolk off his suit.  
Husk pointed his claw at him. “You’re a fine one one to talk, manslut!”   
Claws, fangs and horns were being readied for a fight. Charlie’s dreams of having the staff look after the child while she took a brief nap were shattered. For these damned souls, parental instinct was too much to ask of now…she must find a way to get everyone out of this argument alive.  
She held the orchin above her head, sidestepping a tossed beer bottle. “We’re all family here at Happy Hotel, so he isn’t just my new baby to take care of, he’s our new baby. Think of this as a….a learning experience!”  
“Learning how to put rubbish back where it belongs?” shrieked a small demon with an anglerfish’s face. His size and his little gray PJs gave him an unintentional children’s-book cuteness.  
Vaggie rallied to the baby’s defense. “Orchin’s not ‘rubbish,’ and he deserves to have a life!”  
“A very short one, I hope! And its name is ‘Orchin' now?”  
“Yeah, it is, Baxter. Can’t you think of a normal name for yourself?” snarked Crymini, a spotted dog in a pink dress.  
The laughter made Baxter visibly nervous. He was the kind of demon who’d try to kick you in the balls, only for his foot to stop just short out of fear. This time, though, he rallied on. “You’re both covered in filth!” he cried, pointing at Charlie and Orchin. “Return that thing and shower so you can’t give me an infection! Believe you me, if this _pestilence_ isn’t dumped in the Wood of Suicides like all the rest of Hell’s domestic trash, he’s going to-AHHH!!”  
No one ever found out what he was going to do, because Charlie had thrown Baxter down the air vent.  
“Okay, so…be nice to the baby, and have a happy breakfast!” she chirped, holding the grate over the hole. The wailing sea bunny had migrated to Razzle’s arms as she tried to rock him in a reassuring way.  
“We’ll talk about this later, Charlie,” Vaggie said. Grumbling, the hotel’s occupants separated to get their coffee and start their day. Charlie remained where she was…then her eyes rolled back, she passed out, and she fell to the floor.  
Alastor turned and called into the vent. “Baxter, any eggs left you can drop out of there? I feel like telling Husk to make me an omelette!”  
_“Oh, fuck off!”_


End file.
